SHADE HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMER. 195 



do at any time in the summer to change sheep from a dry 

 to a watered field or range ; but the reverse of this I have 

 always found injurious, particularly to nursing ewes and 

 their lambs. 



SHADE IN PASTURES. The eagerness with which sheep 

 seek shade from the full glare of the summer sun, is of itself 

 a sufficient proof of its utility. Occasional trees or clumps of 

 trees in each pasture afford the most natural shade. Where 

 these and all others (except those made by open rail fences,) 

 are lacking, I believe it would repay the flock-master to form 

 artificial ones by the cheapest means within his reach ; and 

 planting at the same time young, rapidly growing shade trees, 

 for the future, would be a judicious and economical measure. 



HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMER. The comparatively small, 

 choice, high-priced breeding flocks of Merinos are frequently, 

 as has already been mentioned, housed from all summer rain- 

 storms. They are put up nights when there is any prospect 

 of rain, and some put them up nights habitually after the 

 lapse of a few weeks after shearing. The object is to preserve 

 the yolk in the wool, and thereby obtain color and weight 

 of fleece. 



Sheltering in warm weather is unnecessary, and in the 

 case of the sheep, as in that of all other animals, it is the 

 tendency of habitual non-exposure to beget an inability to 

 withstand exposure. But the Merino is not only an exceed- 

 ingly hardy animal, but one which possesses a remarkable 

 power of adapting itself to different circumstances. I have 

 repeatedly bought sheep out of these summer housed flocks, 

 and found no difficulty whatever in accustoming them to 

 ordinary treatment. Housing in summer is not, then, of 

 itself of much consequence, if it and its effects are, as I 

 now believe them to be, universally understood. This being 

 the case it would be binding the sheep breeder by more 

 stringent restrictions than we impose on other breeders, if 

 public opinion refused to tolerate the practice. * 



* I expressed different views in my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, 1862. 

 While I stated that the leading breeders were guilty of no deception in this particular, 

 because they avowed their treatment and their motives for it, I urged that it led to 

 disappointments on the part of the buyer, and that it was a purely unnecessary waste 

 of labor and capital. Further information has convinced me that the effect of summer 

 housing sheep is about as generally understood among sheep men. as the effect of 

 stabling and currying horses is understood among horsemen. And the animals sub- 

 jected to it or not subjected to it can be as readily distinguished from each other, in 

 the fall, when the selling of breeding sheep commences. It is a waste of time; but 

 why shall not the sheep breeder be permitted to waste las time aa well as the cattle 



